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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Cloth Diapering While Working

I knew I wanted to cloth diaper my future children before I even became pregnant. The health, environmental and cost benefits really appealed to me - plus all those pictures of cute, fluffy bottoms didn't hurt either! My husband was on board from the start, although he had serious reservations about whether or not I would be able to keep up with the laundry. When I found out I was pregnant, I ordered my cloth diapers and was ready to go as soon as my daughter arrived. Truth-be-told I was a little worried about the thought of doing laundry non-stop with a newborn, finding a daycare that would cloth diaper and staying on top of washing when I returned to work. However, with a bit of determination I was able to make it work!

We used mainly Kissaluvs Fitted Diapers and Thirsties covers during the day and bumGenius One Size 3.0 pocket diapers at night from birth-3 months. The laundry was no problem at all when I was at home on maternity leave. Once Kendall and I were up for the day, I'd grab my Planet Wise pail liner out of our diaper pail (just a large trash can with a lid) and wash the diapers, cloth wipes and covers. Then I would fold the Kissaluvs fitteds and stuff the bumGenius diapers between feedings and naps and never once did I have an issue. However, I knew my time would be limited when I went back to work in a few months and I wasn't sure how cloth diapering at daycare would work.

Now that I've been back at work for a few week and all my reservations about being able to cloth diaper while working outside my home have disappeared. We were fortunate enough to find a daycare center that would use the cloth diapers. They love our bumGenius and Happy Heinys! We have had a few interesting discoveries when changing her diaper after daycare, including one diaper on backwards but otherwise, it's been smooth sailing.

I bring eight diapers in each morning, and a Medium Planet Wise wet bag to store the dirty diapers. When I get home, I dump the wet bag and diapers in our larger Planet Wise pail liner in the diaper pail and that's it! On laundry nights (every other night) I start the washing machine as soon as I get home for my first cold wash/rinse. I grab the soiled diapers out of the diaper pail and dump in the diapers that were used that day. About an hour later, I follow up with my hot wash/extra rinse cycle with the Rockin' Green detergent and then throw it all in the dryer when it's done. I stuff the clean diapers after Kendall goes to bed for the night and pack her diaper bag for the next day – and I still get to bed at a decent time!

18 comments:

Truth be told, I didn't cloth diaper my first three children. I really really wish I had known how easy, fun, and cute it would be! But when I read that you got a diaper on backwards from daycare, I couldn't help thinking that happened to me with my oldest in disposables! Now it was my brother who did it-twice. But still. Too funny! I've never once gotten my youngest back in a backward cloth diaper. :D Thanks for sharing this!

This is so great to hear. I'm hoping to get our daycare center to agree to cloth diaper my girl (she currently wears disposables on the days she goes to daycare). It sounds like you had good luck with that!

I'm expecting my first child next week and I'm really happy to read about your experience. I was lucky my husband was on board with cloth diapering as well and we've built our stash before the baby is born as well. Here's hoping that things go as well for me as they did for you!!

I had never even though of cloth diapering until now...my 4th child. It always seemed so old fashioned as apposed to stylish :) My consideration came for one of two reasons...first and foremost my DD has bad eczema on her bottom and I'm hoping this would help, secondly since I'm currently a stay at home, but reading how working moms manage puts new light on it all too. Way to go!

I have wanted to cloth diaper for a while but I too wondered what would happen when I went back to work. I am lucky enough right now that my hubby has a flexible work schedule so he will be the one home with so daycare at this moment is not in our plan. However we still have and half month until baby is here so things could change. So glad that someone who works can keep up with the dirty diapers. I was tempted to look into a service but I wanted fuzzi bunz and prefer to wash them myself as apposed to waiting for a cleaning service. Thank you for sharing your story. As you know 1st time pregnancy and 1st time mommies have enough to worry about without having to feel like we are compromising what we hope to do for our children.

We've been toting cloth to daycare for a 13 months now and they think her diapers are SO cute! I found laws for my state (WA) about cloth diapers and daycares and one that tells you they can't is lying! There are rules of how they can handle them, but that's it. Oh and did I mention disposables are included in what we pay monthly. that sure comes in handy when we have a persistent rash, but that's about it! Oh and we have enough so we only wash every 3 days. It's great and I'm SO happy we decided to do it too!

Love the post. I'm 6 weeks back with baby in daycare 2 weeks and this is also our first in cloth. We are using Fuzzi Bunz and I think they love me because they keept asking me if they really didn't have to reuse the "shell" :) I'm glad to hear other working mom's out there are braving it and finding it not so bad.

Wow, I'm so glad to hear that the kissaluvs fitteds worked with your newborn, as did the BGs. Even though I'm not pregnant (yet) with my next child, I found a great deal on diaperswappers for Kissaluvs newborns and started a stash! I'm glad it won't be in vain! Good for you to find a daycare to support it. And to Nichole Pond--I hope you see this because I would LOVE to get in touch to talk about daycares in WA accepting cloth....we are using a military daycare and they have different rules, but I'm working on changing that within the Army, so I'd love to get some resources from you! Can you comment on my blog so we can get in touch? Thanks! :)

We were surprised by how easy it was to convince daycares to agree to cloth, once we showed them how easy pockets were (we mainly send BGs). We have enough in our stash that when our our son was first in daycare, we did laundry every other day. Now it's every three. It has worked out well.